THE SPIRIT OF THE SCHOOL
[CHAPTER I]
AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE IN A NEW RÔLE
“It’s all well enough for you to sit there and grin like a gargle.”
“Gargoyle is what you mean, my boy!”
“Well, gargoyle,” continued Bert Middleton. “What’s the difference? Of course, it’s easy enough for you to laugh about it; it isn’t your funeral; but I guess if you’d had all your plans made up only to have them knocked higher than a kite at the last minute——”
“I know,” said Harry Folsom soothingly. “It’s rotten mean luck. I’d have told the doctor that I wouldn’t do it.”
“But it wasn’t his fault, you see. It’s dad that’s to blame for the whole business. You see, it was this way. The Danas used to live up in Feltonville when I was a kid, and dad and Mr. Dana were second cousins or something, and were sort of partners in a sawmill and one or two things like that. Hansel Dana was about my age, maybe a year younger, and we used to play together sometimes. But his mother used to take him away on visits in the summer, and so we didn’t get very chummy. The fact is I never cared much for him. He was sort of namby-pamby, and used to read kid’s books most all the time. Mr. Dana died when I was about twelve, and Mrs. Dana and Hansel went out to Ohio to live with relatives. Then this summer dad gets a letter from her saying that she wants to send Hansel to a good school in the East, and asking his advice. And nothing would do for dad but that the little beggar must come here to Beechcroft and room with me! Did you ever hear of such luck? And Larry Royle and I had it all fixed to take that dandy big suite in Weeks. Of course that wouldn’t do, for dad says I’ve got to sort of look after the kid. And as his mother hasn’t much money, why, we have to room up here on the top floor of Prince with the grinds and the rest of the queer ones. Look at this hole! Isn’t it the limit? One bedroom, about the size of a pill box, dirty wall paper, a rag of a carpet, and a fireplace that I just bet won’t do a thing but smoke us out!”
“Oh, I don’t know, Bert. I think the place looks mighty swell with all your pictures and truck around. The carpet isn’t much, as you say, but then that’s all the better; you won’t have to be careful about spilling things on it. And maybe What’s-his-name will turn out all right.”
“A regular farmer, I’ll bet! They live in Davis City, Ohio, and I never heard of the place before. He’s been going to some sort of a two-cent academy out there, and now he’s got it into his head that he can enter the third class here. If he makes the second he’ll be doing well.”